How to Install a Wiki in cPanel?

How to Install a Wiki in cPanel: A Complete Guide for Beginners.

To install a Wiki (such as MediaWiki) on cPanel, follow these steps:

1. Log in to cPanel:

Table of Contents

Open your browser and navigate to your cPanel login page (usually http://yourdomain.com/cpanel or http://yourdomain.com:2083).
Enter your cPanel username and password.

For example, MediaWiki is a popular Wiki software.

Go to https://www.mediawiki.org and download the latest version of MediaWiki, or use an automatic script like Softaculous.

Alternatively, if your cPanel has Softaculous Apps Installer, you can skip manual download and directly install MediaWiki through Softaculous.

If your cPanel has Softaculous, you can use it to install MediaWiki or another Wiki software easily:

Go to the “Software” section of cPanel and click on Softaculous Apps Installer.
In the Softaculous dashboard, search for “MediaWiki” in the search bar or find it under the “Portals/CMS” section.
Click on MediaWiki and then click the Install button.
Fill out the following details:
- Choose Domain: Select the domain or subdomain where you want to install the Wiki.
- Directory (optional): Leave this blank if you want to install MediaWiki in the root of your domain (e.g., yourdomain.com), or add a directory (e.g., yourdomain.com/wiki) if you want to place it in a folder.
- Admin Username & Password: Set the administrator credentials.
- Wiki Name & Description: Set the name and description for your Wiki site.
Choose any additional settings, such as the language, database settings (Softaculous will automatically generate the database for you), etc.
Click Install, and Softaculous will take care of the rest.
After installation is complete, you’ll get a success message with a link to your Wiki site (e.g., yourdomain.com/wiki) and an admin link (e.g., yourdomain.com/wiki/mw-config).

If Softaculous is not available or you prefer to manually install the Wiki software, follow these steps:

Go to File Manager in cPanel under the “Files” section.
Navigate to the public_html directory (or a subdirectory if you want to install the Wiki there).
Click Upload and upload the ZIP file for MediaWiki (or the Wiki software you want to install).
After uploading, extract the ZIP file.

Go to MySQL Databases under the Databases section in cPanel.
Create a new database (e.g., wikidb).
Create a new MySQL user and assign it to the newly created database with all privileges.
Take note of the database name, username, and password for later.

After extracting the Wiki files, open your website URL where you uploaded the files (e.g., yourdomain.com/wiki).
The Wiki software should now guide you through the configuration process.
- It will ask for your database name, username, and password.
- Fill in the required information to connect the Wiki software to your database.
- Set up your Wiki admin username and password.
- Complete the installation process.

After configuration, MediaWiki will ask you to delete the mw-config directory for security reasons.
Once deleted, your Wiki will be live and ready to use!

After the installation is complete, you can access your Wiki by visiting the URL where you installed it (e.g., yourdomain.com/wiki).
Log in using your admin credentials to start managing the Wiki.

You can now begin customizing your Wiki, adding content, installing extensions, and configuring settings as needed.

If you encounter issues with the database connection, double-check that the database credentials (name, user, password) are correctly entered in the configuration file.
If Softaculous is not available, or you prefer a different Wiki software, you can manually upload and install other Wiki software (e.g., DokuWiki, TikiWiki) following similar steps.